September 9, 2030, the twelfth day of the eighth lunar month. Auspicious for sacrifice and entering school. Inauspicious for opening a market and breaking ground.
As chance would have it, the day had only just begun when a thunder arrow entered a school, and the earth above the Major's head heaved.
It was also No Drunk Driving Day, so traffic officers were especially thick on the roads these two days.
"Boom, boom, boom..."
Dazzling fireworks burst open, visible to the whole city. Countless citizens were startled awake by the thunderous blasts.
The long tremor sent people scrambling up in panic from rocking beds. Some didn't even pull on their pants before sprinting downstairs. Some wrapped themselves in quilts, clutched their children, and ran for open ground. Some set bare feet on the wet street.
"Earthquake!"
"Is the sky falling?"
"Help! Save me! Save me!"
Screams, wails, shouts for friends and kin, and the startled barking of pets all tangled together and boiled through the streets of the rainy night. Phone flashlights rose and fell one after another. The shaking even reached the outskirts. Drivers sleeping in trucks while they waited to enter the city were jolted awake, and watchdogs beside the fields barked without end.
Yet when the tremor slowly subsided, the fissures in the earth and the collapsing towers everyone had imagined never came. People stopped, gasping, and only then looked up, still badly shaken.
Then they saw it.
On the distant horizon, brilliant fireworks burned in the sky. Rolling black smoke, shot through with flaunting red fire, stained the heavens in bizarre, garish color. It was a scene out of the end of the world.
It was not an earthquake.
People came to that fact little by little. First they let out a breath. Then a chill of alarm struck them.
"All that shaking just now... and it was an explosion in East City?"
"But we felt it all the way over in the West District! There's more than a hundred kilometers between us! What the hell!"
"My God, what blew up? An arms depot? A chemical plant?"
"I've got to call my husband and make sure he's safe. He went to East City tonight for an all-night haircut..."
"Federation above, I hope nobody was hurt."
"Enough with Federation above. What if some department was testing a weapon and caused an accident!"
People talked over one another, barely coherent, venting what panic still clung to them through loud conversation.
The wet ground mirrored the glow of phone after phone, but the downpour beat on their bodies and on the screens, and their figures soon scattered. They went back home, yet their hands and mouths did not rest. Social media, local news, and every sort of chat app all blew up at once.
People guessed like things possessed. Some guessed a chain of natural-gas pipeline explosions. Some swore they had seen a fireball fall from the sky. Others, in the space of three or four minutes, rushed out their own media reports, each headline more shocking than the last.
Shocking! Unidentified Explosion Appears in Tinghai—Suspected Undisclosed Military Test?
Horror! An Apocalyptic Scene? On the Scene of Tinghai's Bizarre Predawn Explosion, September 9!
Hearts in Panic: Sudden Explosion at Longluo Private School—We Demand an Explanation!
In short, the public desperately needed a reasonable explanation.
In the midst of it, it was not that no one guessed the right point. But that inconspicuous, perfectly ordinary guess was swallowed in an instant by versions that caught the eye.
"Could it be the wanted man from the serial bombings, back out in the world?"
"Give it a rest. A mere wanted man couldn't make a commotion like this. How many tons of explosives would he need? Can a bomber hand-roll a nuke?" Guesses like that were ruled out at the first moment.
People were unwilling to believe that an earth-shaking blast that had stunned the whole city could be the work of one mere person—even if that person already had a good number of astonishing prior offenses.
They would much rather believe it was the work of some mysterious force, that a secret military experiment had gone wrong, that this was a third kind of contact between humans and alien life, or else the Tunguska explosion come again in the present day...
Even if it was one person's doing, that person had to be a superman.
Or an alien. Or some demon or monster of extreme power.
Some said that in the direction of Zhenlu Mountain they had seen terrifying lightning and thunder, a storm that lit the sky bright as day. Perhaps an ancient demon was crossing a tribulation tonight. Others swore they had seen lightning, or else a meteor, fly from the direction of Zhenlu Mountain and blast Longluo Private High School into a sea of fire. Hearts were uneasy. Opinions ran in every direction.
Longluo Private High School. Zhenlu Mountain. The two names appeared again and again.
The mysterious figure behind the explosion had, all at once, become the focus of all Tinghai.
The storm grew more urgent. Tinghai, covered by the curtain of rain, looked as if it might be swept away, yet the pouring rain simply could not put out the raging fire burning in the distance.
"Crackle, crackle..."
A hell of thunder-fire burned fiercely. The earth was eaten away by that peculiar thunder-fire and sank inch by inch.
In the small hours of this night, from the top of Tinghai to the bottom—
no one slept.
Beneath deeper waters, undercurrents surged in a fiercer posture, so violent they nearly slapped up onto the shore.
Across the channels of the underground world, encrypted and unencrypted, a vast flood of information spread from end to end.
The Statute Hall, first-tier and second-tier official departments of every kind, Extraordinary cults, secret societies, and numerous "taverns"...
Countless pieces of intelligence moved in secret among the great powers.
"What? There was an explosion in East City too?"
"What do you mean, 'too'? The West District just blew as well? What the hell—it was FZDC headquarters that blew!"
"Longluo Private High School... what kind of place is that?"
"Who did it, and why did they have to make trouble at a time like this... Look into it! We have to get to the bottom of it!"
"First FZDC headquarters, then a school. There has to be a link between the two... This is a declaration of war! A declaration of war on the whole of Tinghai's authorities!"
Panic, shock, excitement, fear, ambition... every sort of feeling fermented in the underground world.
Hidden powers that had lain low stirred quietly and probed for news. The information brokers active in the taverns, and the somewhat higher-end intermediaries, suddenly became exceptionally busy.
The city was boiling, shocked, afraid—and angry as well.
Soon a piece of news that left people gaping broke, and the whole city went quiet.
FZDC—the Deep Research Institute at the headquarters of the Disaster Response and Investigation Agency—had been attacked by unknown persons. The dead at the scene were beyond counting. Many experts had been killed, and an extremely precious secret treasure had vanished without a trace.
Not long after the news went out, Tinghai, which had only just grown noisy, fell in an instant into dead silence.
This intelligence, set beside the news that a school had just been blown up—
anyone with a bit of a brain could clearly realize what every department of Tinghai's authorities would do at a moment like this...
Someone had punched a hole through Tinghai's sky...
And not just punched it—smashed it open with a shit-smeared toilet plunger, driven in hard.
"So what do you mean, Deputy Director Liu has defected, and you want an explanation from our Anomaly Investigation Bureau?"
Wheels ground over the wet pavement and threw up spray. The hurrying Huoxi flung the neon on both sides of the road behind it. Ahead of the four-ring emblem, green lights ran clear the whole way.
The Huoxi was rushing toward FZDC headquarters. In the back seat, a square-faced man bent over documents, while a voice in his earpiece reported the present situation to him.
The man looked travel-worn. His expensive suit was covered in dust and even had holes in it, a sharp contrast with the gleaming leather seat under him.
He did not look like a great man who belonged in this seat... He looked more like someone who had just withdrawn from a battlefield, the exhaustion on his face impossible to hide.
"Wasn't he still a hero before this? How did he turn traitor all of a sudden?"
The man's expression was doubtful. "A hero who fought a demon suddenly becomes a traitor who steals the demon's corpse. He was already going to have a share of the research gains. What is he after?"
"...Is the intelligence confirmed?"
A cold, sharp woman's voice came through the man's earpiece. "Confirmed, Director."
"The scene is a wreck. We found a reaction of the demon's spirituality. There may be more to this than it seems."
"Our team's provisional analysis is that the demon may not have failed to cocoon, and that the Deputy Director Liu who came out of the Reflected Ruin Realm may not be the Deputy Director Liu we know."
"...But as for the specifics, we'll need to investigate further."
The man thought it over, then nodded. "All right. I'll go negotiate with Old Feng at FZDC. I only hope he isn't so furious right now that he slams the table in two."
"Not likely. This affair has blown up too big."
The cold woman's voice drifted out of the earpiece. "I hope he won't jab a finger at your nose and curse you for a sow twisted into a spiral fried-dough twist."
After a moment of silence, the man shook his head, face taut. "No. He definitely will."
"But if something really has gone wrong with Liu Jia, the Anomaly Investigation Bureau will take responsibility for it to the greatest extent, and issue a maximum-level wanted order for him." The man's eyes narrowed slightly, and his grave square face took on a killing intent at once. "I'll go myself and bring him back to atone!"
"Beep, beep. Beep, beep."
This time the alarm seemed to come from the other end of the earpiece.
Then the cold, sharp woman's voice reported, solemn:
"Sudden development. A school in East City called Longluo Private High School has been blown up. At the instant of the explosion, a fluctuation of spirituality was detected, nearly surpassing the level of a level-6 Titled."
"Should the Anomaly Investigation Bureau send cadres of deputy director rank or higher to look into it?" the woman asked. "That school isn't far from where you are now, Director. If you turn around immediately, you can reach the scene in three minutes."
"At a time like this?" The man was briefly stunned. "East City and the West District, explosions one after the other... what is going on?"
"One thing to add: the ground at Longluo Private High School has collapsed over a wide area, exposing traces of a man-made underground base beneath it... and a broad stretch of unidentified spirituality fluctuations was detected there!"
The woman's voice grew more serious the longer she spoke. "The situation over there is no small matter either. Senior people from the Special Control Bureau and the Armory have already rushed there at the first moment."
An underground base? A broad stretch of unidentified spirituality fluctuations?
Was there someone this audacious in Tinghai, who had quietly done a thing like this?
The man's eyes widened. "Tinghai is not at peace tonight..."
A major incident had only just broken in the west of the city, and now the east had erupted as well. Anyone with eyes could see there was a great deal behind it. All of Tinghai had been stirred into a pot of porridge.
"Relay my orders!" The Director's expression turned grave.
"Send letters to every department requesting cooperation. Seal the city of Tinghai completely, by sea, land, and air."
"Turn all spirituality monitoring on. Consider triggering the city lockdown ritual. Outwardly, strictly forbid infiltration by cults such as the Blood Worship Cult. Inwardly, keep security under tight control."
"Every member of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau is to return to post within half an hour, enter a state of alert, and stand ready to handle any sudden development."
"As for Longluo Private High School..."
The man was still thinking whom to send when the woman's voice came through the earpiece again with the latest news.
"The Statute Hall has announced that it is taking over the Longluo Private High School case. The Inspector on duty, White Horse Star, is personally leading a team. They will purge the mysterious structure and the unknown organization beneath Longluo Private High School."
"Aside from the Special Control Bureau and Armory personnel already on the scene, White Horse Star holds that no other department need send anyone else."
"White Horse Star?"
The man's brow drew tight, then eased. "With him there, plus the people from the Special Control Bureau and the Armory, there shouldn't be any problem."
On one side, the Armory, the Special Control Bureau, and the Statute Hall. On the other, FZDC and the Anomaly Investigation Bureau. Reckoned that way, the distribution of personnel at the two scenes was balanced enough.
Only...
The man was puzzled. "The theft of a demon's corpse—what a major case is that?"
"The Statute Hall's Inspector on duty isn't going to FZDC. He's going first to a school that exploded."
"What is he after?"
Was the underground base beneath that school something very special?
Which power had built it in secret, and to what end?
And the mysterious, powerful Extraordinary above level 6 who had set off the explosion there and exposed that base to the public—what manner of being were they?
The man suddenly felt he might have been thinking of the matter too simply.
He immediately gave an order to the other end of the earpiece.
"Take people over there and poke around. Find out what happened beneath that school, and which power is stirring up trouble. Find a way to join the joint purge by the Statute Hall, the Special Control Bureau, and the Armory."
"If White Horse Star asks, say you hadn't received the Statute Hall's notice when you set out."
"All right."
The cold, sharp woman's voice answered, clean and crisp.
"I'll go myself!"
Longluo Private High School, the heart of the vast cavern deep underground.
A few minutes earlier, the Major had still been watching the man before him with a solemn face.
The "former" deputy director of the Anomaly Investigation Bureau, the newly minted number-one traitor, Liu Jia, was here.
He was still that frail, skin-and-bones figure. His movements seemed forever stiff, as if this body were not his at all and he still could not adapt to it, awkward in the frame.
Behind him, upon the grand altar, stood an alloy skeleton crowned with a human brain and loaded with living organs. That was "Liu Zhen."
Liu Zhen and Liu Jia stood one before the other. Their movements were perfectly identical, as if this body of flesh and this alloy body shared one and the same mind.
"Why did you come so late?" The Major narrowed his eyes. His voice echoed through the vast cavern, and the spirituality filling it vibrated of its own accord with his voice, crowding about him like prostrate subjects.
It gave his figure an incomparably towering presence.
Liu Jia answered beside the point. "I heard you ran into a bit of trouble. Is it all right?"
When he spoke, the alloy skeleton behind him spoke as well. One voice was hoarse, the other a mechanical synthesis. The two voices resonated at the same pitch and rang across the empty altar, uncanny in the extreme.
"It's nothing." The Major shook his head.
"There was a small mishap, but in the end fate will flow to its appointed destination."
"Whatever happens, half of that person's soul is here with me. Before her birthday ends, I still have twenty-four hours to catch her... Compared with that, at midnight tonight, the most important matter still lies with you."
As he spoke, the Major drew a hollow π-shaped jade pendant from his breast and clenched it tightly in his palm.
"Hum!"
As if it had sensed the man before it, the π-shaped jade pendant hummed and trembled, and a mysterious light of interwoven gold and red flowed from it.
His ten fingers tightened on the pendant. The Major raised his eyes to Liu Jia, and his voice was low. "Are you ready?"
"To take possession of that body?" Liu Jia glanced at the π-shaped jade pendant in the Major's hand and slowly nodded. "That is precisely why I came."
As the words fell, Liu Jia turned toward the altar, dragging his stiff, awkward movements with him.
Liu Jia walked very slowly, dawdling, but under the Major's unblinking gaze he at last reached the highest point of the altar, above the nine tiers of steps.
Liu Zhen's alloy skeleton stood at the left of the foot of the steps. The arrangement seemed to hold some special, mysterious significance.
Seeing this, the Major loosened his grip on the pendant, returned it to his breast, and slowly nodded.
Time passed slowly.
The hands of the wristwatch pointed to 00:00.
In the instant the hour hand and the minute hand overlapped, the moment when the end of one day met the beginning of another—
"Begin!" The Major looked up, expectation in his eyes.
He knew that in a moment this place would ring with grand bells and solemn horns, and he would see falling petals and burning flame...
Years of laying plans were finally drawing closed here.
The first stage of Ascension to Sainthood had opened smoothly.
Once Liu Jia took possession of Liu Zhen, and they caught Fang Xiaoxia afterward, the Ascension to Sainthood Project would enter the climax of its final chapter—
So many years of toil, at last...
"A-bu-qia-pa, ka-ta-du-la..."
The tongue-twisting sounds were like an incantation and like a sacrificial prayer. Liu Jia dawdled as he raised his hands and formed a seal.
"..."
The altar began to glow.
The Major watched without blinking. At this moment he was unwilling to miss even a second.
Yet what came before the grand bells and the solemn horns was...
"Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!!!"
Heaven shook and the earth rocked!
An uninvited guest dropped from the sky, a meteor of heavenly punishment wreathed in raging fire.
As if a punishment from heaven had arrived, thunder-fire poured suddenly down from above, and surging flame tore through the crust overhead.
"Not good!"
"We're under attack!"
From the distance came a Black Warrior's muffled grunt and the wails of the staff. Explosion after explosion rocked the vast artificial cavern, and broken stone pattered down.
"What's going on!" The Major jerked his head up, his eyes dark and vicious.
Through the chaotic, rolling smoke, above the burning thunder-fire, the huge opening to the open air left by the collapse of tumbling stone—
entered the Major's rigid line of sight just like that.
The Major looked up and saw the downpour streaming in, and a sky full of dark cloud.
Just like his mood at this moment.
Farther off, looking as far as the eye could see, he could faintly make out great patches of black shapes rising and falling, racing toward this burning world. Some of the figures were even cradling large black cases.
The Major was certainly no stranger to them—
the authorities' Extraordinaries, come the moment they caught wind of it!
"Calamity..."
That dark, oppressive gaze could not express even a fraction of the nausea the Major felt now.
"Who, in the end, did this..."
In that moment, ten thousand thoughts turned through the Major's mind.
The explosion had come without warning, but the sudden bombing of the school on the surface had a purpose that could not have pointed more clearly at him.
Yet this base, so secret and only just brought into use, and he himself, who had been keeping a very low profile of late—when had he ever provoked an enemy who knew his secrets?
As if he had thought of something, the Major went rigid all over.
It couldn't be.
It couldn't be that Bai Zhou, the one he had been hunting so madly tonight?
On the road, with the entire Fine Arts Society hunting him, he still had the leisure to come back and blow up a school?
The Major did not believe it.
After all, that was simply too...
That was simply too far-fetched.
Liu Jia, standing at the top of the altar, faced the surging heavenly fire rolling down beside him. He first went blank, then abruptly raised his head and looked toward some distant direction.
That was the direction the lightning meteor had come from, a direction Liu Jia should not have been able to see.
But now he—or rather, Chi—was watching the storm-tossed night sky in that direction all the same.
The sky was covered in dark cloud. No stars could be seen. Aside from the downpour, the thunder, and the thick smoke rolling up into the sky, nothing else was visible.
But Chi's gaze moved, as if he saw a play upon a stage opening into its climax.
Mystery hidden in the dark and blades standing upon the stage clashed and rang together. The gears of fate spun free at a runaway pace, far too smoothly oiled, like that train racing across the boundless snowfield, about to reach the end of its journey.
"...Zhenlu Mountain?"
Amid the crackling flames, the number-one traitor named Liu Jia murmured, a little puzzled, too softly for the frantic Major to hear.
Tinghai had a nursery rhyme, passed down since ancient times around Zhenlu Mountain.
"White egret, white egret, when will you fly?"
High on the altar, Liu Jia's gaze passed through the great hole overhead and the thick smoke, looking far off into the distant night sky, watching the rain grow ever more urgent.
No one knew whom Chi's gaze had found. The smile at the corner of his mouth slowly curved up.
"White egret, white egret, when will you fly?"
Today.
Today!
Chapter 199